Finding Thanksgiving
by CheerfulChemist
Summary: Post 807. AU After his initial high from sex with Kate, Castle is depressed. He wants her to come for Thanksgiving, but she says no. He suspects the reason for her retreat revolves around Vikram. Spurred on by Martha, decides to do something about it. Of course I own nothing Castle.
1. Chapter 1

Finding Thanksgiving

Chapter 1

Castle sat behind his P.I. desk with the heaviness of his head supported by his hand. He was trying to work up the energy to play with the toy on his desk. Coaxing the rhythmic clicks from the swinging silver balls would at least be doing something. But he couldn't even do that. He couldn't do anything.

Martha Rodgers swept through his office door, the bright colors of her outfit a shock in his gloom. "Richard, Alexis called me. She's worried about you and I can see why. What are you doing sitting around? It's only a week until Thanksgiving. Usually you can't even sit still this close to the holiday."

Castle looked up morosely. "I know, Mother. But with Kate gone, it's hard to get into the thankful mood."

Martha tilted her head in puzzlement. "You certainly seemed thankful enough after she came to see you for your belated anniversary celebration. You couldn't get the smile off your face. It was obvious that you two..."

Castle flushed. "Yes Mother, there was a moment or two of marital bliss. Or should I say quasi-marital bliss? Nothing has really changed. I think if anything, it's worse."

Martha sank into a chair opposite his desk and stared into the answering blue of her son's eyes. "Why do you say that?"

Castle sighed, his shoulders slumping. "Because now I know she's keeping something from me, something that has nothing to do with working out any personal issues she's trying to get through."

Martha straightened. "Just how do you know that?"

"Well after, when she went to the bathroom to get dressed before she left, her phone buzzed with a text."

"And of course you couldn't resist reading it," Martha accused.

"I read it," Castle admitted. "I don't know who it was from, but whoever it was said they'd found something and told Kate to get someplace private and call ASAP. I thought she had gone off to be by herself, but she's working with someone, Mother. She's working on something she refuses to tell me about. She promised we'd be partners in life and crime and right now we're neither. But she's got a partner somewhere."

"You don't think she's having an affair, do you Richard?"

Castle shook his head. "No, this is much worse, much deeper. This all started when she got that call from Vikram about her team from the A.G.'s task force getting killed. It was supposed to be over when Allison Hyde died, but I don't think it is. I think Kate is caught up in this the way she was in her mother's case. She's hurled herself down the rabbit hole and someone is feeding her magic mushrooms."

"Any idea who?" Martha wondered.

Castle scrubbed a hand over the stubble he hadn't bothered to scrape from his chin that morning. "There's only one person I can think of it could be. Everything was fine until she got a call from Vikram and since he's been around, everything's turned to crap."

"Well then Richard, if you want Kate back, if you want to save your marriage, you better get off that well shaped butt of yours and find a way to figure out where the hole is, pull her out of it and away from him. Or are you ready to give up?"

Castle rose from his chair. "I can't give up, Mother. She's a piece of me that's been wrenched away. It's a jagged piece and the edges wound. I can't tell you that trying to make it fit hasn't been painful, but no matter how cut up I am, or how bad it gets, I know I'll never be whole until she's back."

Martha motioned toward the door. "Then get to it!"

* * *

Kate Beckett could see between the slats of the blinds on her door that the knock was coming from her husband. She unconsciously moistened her lips, even while burying the latest information Vikram had dug up on heroin under a stack of files. "Come in Castle. Hey," she greeted him as casually as she could.

"Hey," he returned. "I was just trying to figure out how big a turkey to buy."

Kate's brow furrowed. "I'm sorry Castle, what?"

"Thanksgiving, Kate. You remember, pilgrims, pumpkin pie, Native Americans who kept the settlers from starving before the settlers slaughtered them. A celebration of over-consumption of food and football induced concussions. And incidentally, remembering what's happened in the last year that we have to be thankful for. I was wondering if you're coming and if I should ask your father." Castle held up his left hand, displaying his wedding ring. "Despite our time out, theoretically we are still family."

Kate chewed on her lip. "I hadn't thought about it Castle."

"So think about it now," Castle urged. "You're the captain. Montgomery and Gates never worked on Thanksgiving. So I know you don't have to. Or did you have someone else to spend it with?"

Kate's mouth fell open as her face blanched. "Of course not Castle! Castle, I love you. Why would you even think...?"

"Kate, in case it hasn't occurred to you, I still don't know why you're gone. You've refused to explain. All you've told me is that you have things you need to work out - without me. I was wondering if you were getting help somewhere else. I have no idea what you do when you're not here, or with whom you do it."

Kate pushed herself out of her chair and walked around her desk to stand in front of him near the door. She cupped his now shaven cheek in her hand. "Oh Babe, you need to keep trusting me until I can explain what's been happening. I promise, when it's all over, I will. There's no one I want to be with more than you and nowhere I'd rather be than with your family - our family. I just don't think this is the time yet. I'm sorry. You don't know how sorry I am."

Castle pulled her hand from his face. "I'm sorry too. I'll get a big bird anyway, in case you change your mind and deign to put in an appearance. I know how to handle leftovers. I have empathy with them."

"Rick, please don't do this," Kate begged. "I can't stand having you look at me like that."

Castle took a step away. "Kate, the door to my home - our home - is still open. Your key still fits. You just have to figure out a way to walk through it. Right now, I just don't know what else I can can say to you."

The blinds rattled as Castle closed the door of Kate's office behind him. Kate stood rooted to the spot staring between the slats at his retreating image.

Castle closed his eyes and exhaled a held breath as the elevator doors closed. Mother was right. He couldn't just sit around and wait for Kate to come back. He had to do something. He jerked his cell phone out of his pocket. A saucy British accent answered on the first ring. "New case, Castle?" Hayley Shipton inquired.

"Old case," Castle replied, "maybe a very old case. Hayley, I need you to dig up everything you can on Vikram Singh. And Hayley, I don't care how you do it."


	2. Chapter 2

Finding Thanksgiving

Chapter 2

Castle smiled cynically at his computer screen. It was as he had expected from his own experience as a student, Kyle Thompkins the Third, a college senior frantic parents had hired him to find, had not been abducted. In fact he was no longer missing. Castle knew exactly where he was - in Atlantic City, burning up credit cards for which his parents had cosigned. Between the lap dances, booze, hotel room, and cash advances, Mr. and Mrs. Thompkins the Second would have a lot more to worry about than Castle's fee. Castle sighed. At least the kid was all right. More all right than Castle was. Usually Hayley was pretty quick. He'd expected something by last night, but her call hadn't come.

The strains of Rule Britannia emanated from Castle's pocket. Finally. He hit the speaker button on his phone and didn't bother with a hello. "Hayley, what have you got?"

"Castle, Vikram Singh is not Vikram Singh," Hayley reported.

"Then who is he?" Castle asked.

"I don't know," Haley responded. "There was a real Vikram Singh. He was the child of immigrants from India. His father was a mathematics professor, his mother a neurobiologist. His fingerprints were on file because his parents had them taken in case anything ever happened to him. He was a straight 'A' student in high school and went to MIT in computer science. He and his parents were all killed in a car crash just after he graduated. While our phony Vikram was at the Twelfth, I broke into his apartment and got his prints off his toothpaste tube. They don't match. I got some DNA off his toothbrush too. I'm having it run, but I don't expect anything. The man's a ghost, Castle. He is on record as having worked for the FBI, on the A.G."s Task Force, but his background was invented. He was planted there."

"By whom?" Castle asked.

Castle could hear Haley's sigh through the phone. "Someone with a lot of power, Castle. But whoever it was is buried deep. Do you want me to keep digging?"

The muscles on Castle's jaw bulged as he ground his teeth. "Hire a backhoe if you need to, but I need to find out what Kate has fallen into - and how to get her out of it. And send me everything you have so far."

Castle barged into Kate's office to find her in whispered discussion with Vikram. "Get out!" he ordered, glaring at the tech. "I need to talk to my wife."

Vikram looked questioningly at Kate, who stared at Castle and shuddered. The only time she had seen a look in his eyes like that had been when he tortured the driver of the van involved in Alexis' kidnapping. She nodded at Vikram to leave. "Castle what the hell?"

Castle held out a USB drive. "Kate, before you say anything else, you need to see what's on this. Please."

Kate inserted the drive into the laptop on her desk and Castle stood watching and trying to breathe. Her face whitened and, her teeth mangled her lower lip as she read. She shook her head in disbelief, the trembling words spilling from her mouth. "Castle, I don't know what's happening. I don't even know what's real now. Everything moved so fast after Vikram - or whoever he is - called me, I never had a chance to think about it. I never had a chance to question what he told me. But after, I should have."

"Kate, whoever is behind this knew how to pull your strings and didn't care how many people died in the process." Castle fisted his hands. "It reminds me of my father."

"Your father," Kate repeated. "Oh, Castle. I met someone who said she was your stepmother. She said her name was Rita and she and your father had been married for ten years, but she hadn't seen him in ten months. She rescued Vikram and me, or at least I thought she did. The whole thing could have been staged."

"It probably was," Castle concluded grimly. "I doubt that my father would marry anyone, except maybe as a cover story. When we rescued Alexis and then again when he came back to pull us into his hunt for Gemini, he made it very clear that he couldn't have relationships. His one-nighter with Mother almost got Alexis killed. He knew that. I can't see him risking anything close to a marriage. Whoever this Rita was, she must have been lying to you."

"Rick, she was the one who told me not to get anyone else involved. She told me your blood would be on my hands. And I believed her!" Tears overflowed Kate's eyes. "Oh God! I blew up our marriage because I believed her." Kate sprang from behind her desk. "Castle, I can't let this stand. I need to find out who that impostor out there is and why I've been targeted." She took his hand, drawing her thumb in circles over the warm skin of his fingers. "I am so sorry, and I need to know if you can forgive me enough to find out with me."

Castle jerked his hand away. These were the words he had wanted to hear. But they were only words. He knew he'd heard them before, every time Kate had lied to him, every time she'd let her obsession overcome her reason and run off on her own. She was always sorry. He wanted to believe the words. He wanted to believe her. Pressure built in his chest and he felt a band tightening around his head as every muscles tensed. He wasn't sure he could believe her. The relief of forgiveness he had expected to come flooding into his heart was a slow drip at best. "Kate, I'm going to try. But I can't handle the lies anymore, especially the lies of omission. If there's one person you should have been straight with in this world, it's me. Hours after you promised no more secrets, you pushed me away - again. I love you, but I can't trust you anymore. And worse, I can't believe that you trust me. I will be with you in this, but if there's any hope for us, somehow we're going to have to learn to trust each other again. And honestly, right now, I don't know how."

The salt of her tears stung Kate's abused lip. She swallowed, chilled by the ice in Castle's voice. "So where do we start?"

"Obviously, I already have," Castle pointed out. "I had Hayley dig up what you just read about our faux Vikram. She's still digging. But there's one essential relationship we need to uncover. The person who called herself Rita, she clearly knows my father and his background. That means she's either CIA or has deep ties there. We need to ask the one person who would know."

"Your father?" Kate asked. "How?"

"For whatever reason, he always seems to be minding my business, our business. There's one code we've used that he will understand. If I put an essay on the Richard Castle web site about drawing inspiration from Casino Royale and he sees it, he should get in touch. It's worth a shot."

Her words still caught in the tightness of her throat, Kate silently nodded.


	3. Chapter 3

Finding Thanksgiving

Chapter 3

The weather in New York wasn't cold for late November. If anything it was warmer than usual, courtesy of a record breaking El Niňo. Still, Kate shivered. A couple of months ago she would have cuddled up to Castle. But now the stiff line of his body bid her to keep her distance. Jackson Hunt should have been there five minutes before. Of course the wily spy never did the expected. He would reconnoiter and appear out of nowhere when he was ready. Finally Kate caught sight of a flash of sunlight off the silver hair of a tall figure.

Hunt sat on a bench behind Kate and Castle."This had better be an emergency, son," he warned gruffly. "Being seen with me could hazardous to all our healths."

"Fine," Castle retorted. "I'll get to it. Are you married and if so, is her name Rita?"

The crags on Hunt's handsome face deepened. "I can't get married son. You know that. No relationships, ever. If I had married someone it would probably have been your mother. So who's this Rita?"

"I met her," Kate put in. "She claimed to be your wife."

"What did she look like?" Hunt pressed.

Kate closed her eyes, picturing Castle's faux stepmother. "Tall, brunette, about five ten, in her early fifties. She looked sort of like a member of the Cusack family."

Hunt nodded slowly. "I think I know who you're talking about. She goes by Silver. She's CIA, fairly high ranking. In fact, at one point she was in charge of the unit you hooked up with son, the one that ran Sophia Turner. Having Sophia turn out to be a mole was a black mark against her career. She's been stuck ever since. She's been looking for a way to make a jump, although I don't know how you two would figure in that."

"How about uncovering another mole?" Castle asked. "Could that be some kind of crack at redemption?"

Hunt's shaggy eyebrows rose in bafflement. "What mole?"

"Have you ever heard of someone called LokSat?" Kate asked.

"LokSat?" Hunt repeated. "He's an agency legend, a boogie man. He was said to have been a partner of that senator you two took down, Bracken. Supposedly he helped run a huge drug operation, working with cartels from Columbia and Mexico. He made all the international connections using agency intel. But no one's ever gotten a line on him. There's no evidence that he actually exists."

"But if he did exist, and Silver tracked him, she could write her own ticket in the agency," Castle speculated.

"Probably," Hunt agreed.

"Might she be using an operative, early 30's, about six one, Indian extraction?" Kate queried grimly.

"That's her number one boy," Hunt replied, "Bankin. Where did you see him?"

Kate's nails made red crescents in her palms. "He works for me. Or at least I thought he did. He made contact with me using an emergency code. We were working together, supposedly to take down a rogue operation. Then I hired him as a tech at my precinct."

"It all fits," Castle asserted. "Rita, or Silver, staged a scenario to draw in the one person she knew would go after this LokSat with total obsession, you Kate. You spent over a decade going after Bracken. She knew you couldn't let it go. Hell, Bracken knew that. That's what he meant when he was taunting me at the prison before he was taken out."

"But all those men I had to kill, Castle," Kate protested. "One of them even shot me."

"They were probably mercs," Hunt suggested. "They could have been good enough to wound you without killing you. And Silver would have sacrificed them without a qualm."

"They were mercs," Castle confirmed. "I figured that out while they were torturing me. Then Kate could come in and save the day."

"Of course," Kate realized. "She made sure I'd know you'd be in danger if I even involved you. I'd have no one to turn to except Vikram - Bankin. And he's been feeding me whatever information she had to put me on the trail."

"And are you on the trail?" Hunt questioned.

"I think so," Kate replied. "Bankin has been giving me data about chemical fingerprints of heroin being distributed in this country. I got the fingerprint from CSU of the type Bracken's front man Vulcan Simmons sold. The N.Y.P.D. had it on file. Silver must have needed my access to that information. Bankin told me he had a match. Castle, that was the text the night we... Bankin and I have been trying to track down the source ever since. It's Columbian. It's been coming by a shipping round robin into the port of Newark. Castle, that's what Bankin and I were talking about when you burst in on us."

"You might just have something there, Detective," Hunt remarked. "The question is, what do you want to do about it? If you do get close to LokSat, he wouldn't hesitate to take you out."

"But if Silver finds out I'm on to her, she wouldn't either, would she?" Kate returned.

"No," Hunt answered matter-of-factually. "She wouldn't."

"Kate," Castle urged. "You could just walk away from this. Tell Bankin you've changed your mind."

"Castle what's to keep Silver from taking me out anyway, just to cover her tracks? What's to keep her from taking you out too, now that Bankin knows we've been talking to each other? He might think you convinced me to back off. We have to follow this through. If we can take down LokSat, we should be safe from both him and Silver. And if he turns out to be a blind alley, maybe Silver will turn her attentions elsewhere."

"Oh more than that," Hunt put in. "If it became known that she tried and failed, unwanted attentions would be turned on her. But as long as there's a chance of success, the agency will leave her alone and give her a chance to succeed, or enough rope to hang herself with. Keeping up the pretense with Bankin and using every skill that you have, is the best chance for both of you to stay alive. Now I can give you a contact. He's dangerous, a freelance informant, loyal only to himself. But he has access to information about what comes in and out of Newark. There's a lot that passes through that port besides drugs. We've mostly used him for tips on weapons shipments. Keep an eye on your phone. I can text you about a meet. My contact goes by Jones."

"Wow, Castle commented, "almost as original as Smith."

"It's not a joke, son," Hunt cautioned. "If he thinks you'll burn him, he'll take you out just as fast as Silver or LokSat would. You two will have to guard every word."

"Yeah words," Castle responded. "Those are the one thing I can handle."

A/N I'll be traveling the next couple of days so I don't know how normal my posting schedule will be. I do my best to stay on track.


	4. Chapter 4

Finding Thanksgiving

Chapter 4

The bar near Newark Airport where Kate and Castle met Jones was anything but seedy, but it did allow for privacy. The booths were well upholstered with high walls, eliminating not only the chance of being overheard, but of lipreading. The booth Jones had chosen was near the back, but in eye shot of a mirror mounted high on the wall, from which Jones could watch the door. As the Castles slid into the cushy seating, Jones activated a sweeper function on his phone. Finally he was satisfied they were secure.

Castle ordered drinks, with Jones requesting a fifty year old scotch for which Castle paid. "I like the finer things," Jones remarked, running his eyes up and down Kate's obvious assets. "I see that you do too."

"Can we get down to business now?" Kate put in impatiently.

"No worries," Jones replied. Castle handed him an envelope stuffed with bills. Jones flipped through them, quickly estimating the amount. "Right. So you wanted information on the heroin from the Columbian cartel. Those buggers have actually been growing it in Afghanistan. They made a deal with the rebels fighting the Taliban. The cartel keeps them supplied with weapons and they protect the poppies. Sweet little deal too. The U.S. of A. supports the rebels, so they keep their hands off the business. The cartel brings it into Columbia for processing, then put it on a series of ships where it gets manifested as innocent cargo: fiber optics, cosmetics, videos. The ships do a little dance, exchanging cargoes up and down the coast so it's hard to track what's where. Finally they offload here."

"So who picks up the shipments?" Kate asked.

"The dealers lost much of their network. But then you know that," Jones told her. "You were largely responsible for it. Made all the papers when you uncovered Bracken's operation. But there were still operatives under wraps, operatives Bracken knew nothing about."

"From LokSat?" Castle queried.

"I couldn't testify to that, mate," Jones responded, "and I wouldn't if I could. Dropping his name tends to lead to short lifespans. Let's just say Bracken had a silent partner, silent on some things, even to Bracken. He's been rebuilding the network. There's a pick-up due tomorrow. Usually made in a Chevy Colorado or something like one, not too big, not too new, and not too showy. It will be at the container terminal, right near where they load those big boys on the rails, fronted by some guy pretending to bring the workers their suppers. Usually happens right around dusk just before the lights come on. Makes it difficult to see what's going on. You want to see what's happening, you'll be here then. But mates, if you get caught, no one will ever see you again." He gazed again at Kate. "That would be a bloody shame."

* * *

"Kate," Castle suggested as they made the journey back to Manhattan, "we might as well use the loft as our headquarters. Bankin knows you were there and by now Silver probably does too. The cat's out of the bag. And Jones is not the only one who has a sweeper on his phone."

"Castle when did you get that paranoid.?" Kate asked.

"After my own father planted a tracker on me. Let's say I'm wary of being used."

Kate's hands tightened on the wheel. "Castle is that what you think I'm doing? I did everything I could to keep you out of it."

"That's ironic Kate because you're the one person I wanted to use me," Castle answered, the words husky in his throat. "No, I meant the spooks, on any side. The ones who kidnapped me to Thailand and took my memory, my father, Russian assassins, whoever, I seem to attract them."

"Well that makes two of us, Castle."

Castle pulled his cell out of his pocket. "Kate, I know you've always want to go it alone and you hate the to ask for help, but we could use some back up on this. You were using Bankin, but we know we can't trust him. I'm calling Hayley. Since she did the research on Bankin, she's already in it. I've probably put her in danger too and the best way she can get out of it, is to help us end this."

* * *

With Martha gone and Alexis at school, the loft was deserted. Hayley joined Kate and Castle soon after they arrived. Castle swept every room, just for safety, and they settled around the kitchen table to plan. Hayley explained that she had an associate who could dummy up the documents they needed to get them into the container area as inspectors. Once they were there, they could set up surveillance for the truck, with Haley occupying a separate position as a spotter.

Returning to New Jersey, they took their positions at four P.M., allowing plenty of time for the workers to take a meal break and the pick-up to arrive. The truck was as nondescript as Jones had described it. The black paint had lost its sheen and the body bore several dings and scratches, testifying to hard use. A small magnetic logo reading "Gino's Eats" had been affixed to the driver's door.

The driver, a squat man with dark hair and a barrel chest, set up a stand at some distance from the truck, selling Styrofoam containers with large submarine sandwiches and chips, coffee out of a canister, and soft drinks from a tub of ice. While the most of workers were occupied with their meal, another worker slipped packages into the back of the pick-up. Using a zoom, Castle snapped pictures as he and Kate watched, uploading them to the cloud in case the camera was lost or damaged. The stowing of packages into the truck was accomplished within minutes, while the driver was still engaged providing food and the men, and two very sturdy women, were eating it. Within less than fifteen minutes, the driver was back in his truck, heading out of the port.

Hayley was the first to follow, relaying the truck's position to Kate. The driver was careful, avoiding attracting attention by moving at the speed of traffic. He passed through the Lincoln tunnel, but headed uptown toward Washington Heights. "Vulcan Simmons' old stomping grounds," Castle noted.

"More than that, Castle," Kate observed as she followed the driver's route. "He's headed toward the auto shop where Simmons was killed. Whoever is behind this must have reopened operations."

"If that's where he's going," Castle offered, "we should be able to set up surveillance, use parabolic mikes, pick up their cell phone conversations, and eavesdrop on any wi fi traffic that isn't encrypted."

"Castle, when did you learn to be so underhanded?" Kate wondered. "Not at the precinct."

"Not from 'By the Book Beckett,' even when you weren't," Castle agreed. "Some of it, the more legal parts were from my P.I. course. For the rest of it, I've been getting a tutorial in fast and dirty from Haley. She has her own lab connections too, although not as effective as CSU. Still, as a consultant, she's been very helpful in getting me past lost purses and trailing after the N.Y.P.D."

"I can't say that I approve of some of her methods, but Castle, right now, I'm glad you've been a willing student. Look, I was right, this street leads straight to the auto shop. Let Haley know where he's going and she can hang back a little more. We'll check out who he sees when we get there."

"Kate," Castle cautioned. "We can do that just as long as we keep our distance. This place hasn't exactly been lucky for you. But after we see whatever we can safely see, we retreat, gather our equipment and put our surveillance schedule together. Even as captain, you need to put in your regular appearances at the precinct. You know your buddy Bankim will be keeping Silver apprised. You can't afford to send up any red flags."

Kate flinched at the way Castle intoned "buddy." "Don't worry, Castle. I'll pursue may captainly duties and say just enough to keep Bankim on the hook.

A/N I thank you all for the incredible response to this story. I truly appreciate it.


	5. Chapter 5

Finding Thanksgiving

Chapter 5

Being careful to call him Vikram, Kate made sure that her tech was occupied. Ryan and Esposito had picked up a murder and she instructed them to give Vikram charge of scrubbing all the security video and decrypting documents on the victim's hard drive.

Haley had pulled in other operatives she trusted to take a shift watching the auto shop and record any activity that didn't including banging the dents out of mangled metal. Haley took a shift with Castle, and Kate joined them after she left the precinct in the evening. There was a stream of what looked like low level dealers in and out, some driving junkers to lend credibility to their appearance at the repair facility. Light spilled out of doors as they arrived, making them visible. Kate stabilized her camera on a tripod inside a van so that she could use a slow shutter speed and no flash. She snapped pictures of everyone going in and out, to be run for facial recognition. In order to avoid alerting Bankin, Haley would be accessing the system through a back channel. Kate didn't want to know how. None of the arrivals looked promising until close to midnight when a man arrived casually dressed, but with shoes that looked way too expensive and far too subdued for a low level drug dealer. He came and went with a leather attaché case. "That case does have the unsavory aroma of drug money," Castle asserted. "We should follow him."

"Let's do it", Hayley urged Kate. "I'll get your photo out of the cloud and email it to my associate. While we're waiting for an ID, we should see where he goes." Kate agreed to the plan.

The Attaché Case Man made his way to a town house in lower Manhattan where he was greeted by a tall woman with well styled hair, Playboy Bunny measurements, and courtesy of a porch light and a powerful zoom, no wedding ring. "Looks like our courier has a dolly bird," Hayley observed.

"I think we know where he'll be for the rest of the night or...," Castle consulted his watch, "the early morning. Kate you need to show up at the precinct on your regular schedule. Why don't we call in another team to set up here in a few hours? Then you can catch what rest you can."

"Castle, I'm fine," Kate insisted. "I can always catch a nap on the couch in my office - a nap where I actually sleep," she teased, trying to throw in some of their old playfulness.

"Castle ignored the quip. And how's that going to look to Bankin?" Castle prodded. "He'll see that and the satchels under your eyes and wonder what you were up to without him. He's CIA, Kate. He's trained to notice. We've got a target. Let's not blow it by being careless."

"He's right, Detective," Hayley added. "When you're tired is when you make mistakes, and right now that could be fatal. My team will be in here soon. We won't lose this arse hole."

Hayley dropped Castle at the loft and took Kate to her SRO. "I don't understand you, woman," Hayley burst out as Kate was leaving the van. "I've seen a lot of couples and I've never seen a man love a woman the way that man loves you. I wish I could see a look in a man's eyes when he looks at me, like Castle has when he looks at you - even now when he's thoroughly pissed at you. I can't understand how you could walk away from that."

Kate just shook her head. "I thought I was saving him. It was stupid. I just hope I can fix it."

"Well I hope you can too, Duck. This is one story that deserves a happy ending."

Kate left the van and walked up the worn staircase to her room. Even exhausted as she was, the lumpy bed seemed even less inviting than usual. She pulled one of Castle's t-shirts she'd filched from the hamper at the loft, out of a rickety drawer. It smelled of soap and sweat and Castle. Pulling her legs up to her chest, she curled around it for what was left of the night.

* * *

Kate daubed a concealer Martha swore by over the raccoon circles under her eyes. It was a fair disguise of how she felt. With one of her new suits and matching pumps, she would look captainly. She wished she felt more that way. It had looked simple when Montgomery and Gates did it. There was nothing simple about running a precinct, especially when she was trying to run her own secret investigation. Now she would have to fool her tech too. She could almost hear her father's voice chiding her as a child, "Oh what a tangled web we weave." She should have listened. At least then she would have spent last night cuddling up to her favorite warm body instead of his shirt. Somehow she'd show him that she was worthy of his trust, and she knew he was worthy of hers. She'd have to.

Kate was beginning to wonder why she'd wanted to be a captain. It hadn't really been her ambition until classmate, Ensign Klemp, had achieved it. Then it seemed unacceptable that someone would get ahead of her. She was the best homicide cop in the city. The statistics of that were undisputed. She'd brought justice to those who couldn't achieve it for themselves. That was a noble endeavor, one to which many cops gladly devoted their lives. But she'd wanted to do more. She'd thought the AG's task force would provide that chance for her. The consequences of that debacle were still unfolding with a body count higher than months worth of New York homicide cases. So now she was trying to fill that hole in her soul again. It wasn't working. The only time she'd ever felt fulfilled, felt whole, was when she was solving cases with Castle, when somehow the melding of their minds put the universe right. She'd hadn't stopped to think. She'd allowed herself to be manipulated into pursuing someone else' quest. And now she was stuck with it, as were Castle and Hayley. She remembered Kyle Jennings, who'd been used as a zombie pawn to kill just one person. She and Castle had discussed how much therapy he would need to live with what he'd done, even though he couldn't have prevented it. She could have known better. She should have known better. No number of hours with Dr. Burke could make this go away. But maybe bringing down one last evil and keeping Silver from working any more mind games on other mindlessly ambitious pawns like Kate had been would help. She hoped it would. She hoped it would help make her the person Castle could take back in his life.

Hayley called. Her team had reported that Attaché Case Man was on the move and he had the case with him. Hayley and Castle were picking up the trail. Kate prayed that Castle wouldn't find a way to get himself killed before she could craft a reasonable excuse to leave her office and join the chase.

A/N After last night, this is AU, but not as much as it might have been.


	6. Finding Thanksgiving Chapter 6

Finding Thanksgiving

Chapter 6

The estate in Westchester was surrounded by woods. Hayley's team had detected cameras that would reveal anyone who got to close, so they kept their distance until Haley and Castle could arrive. "We'll have to disable those without letting them know about it," Haley mused to Castle when they relieved her operatives.

"And how do we do that?" Castle wondered.

Hayley gazed around her. "The woods here all look pretty much the same. We shoot footage of the trees. Then we hack the surveillance system and beam in a loop of our own video, so they can't see us move in."

"How long will that take?" Castle asked.

"Depends on how good their system is," Hayley responded. "And if this LokSat is as clever as we've been led to believe, that could be very good. I'll get started and we'll just have to hang back until I can make it in. Of course if Attaché Case leaves, we'll have to follow him."

"Attaché Case takes too long to say. We need a better name for him than that, something short and pithy. How about Dick?" Castle proposed.

"Seems appropriate," Hayley agreed, her eyes twinkling.

Dick seemed in no hurry to leave the rustic surroundings. "He's been in there for hours," Castle observed unnecessarily. "This must be some kind of headquarters, maybe a counting facility like the one Kate saw when she was captured by Simmons. But if it was run like that one, we would have seen the women being brought in to run the machines, and we haven't."

"Perhaps Dick lives a less lascivious lifestyle than Simmons did," Hayley suggested, "or LokSat is more careful than Bracken was. After all, Bracken did get caught and LokSat hasn't been - yet. Anyone who's part of the operation may be kept in residence, with Dick replacing Simmons as a figurehead."

"Makes sense," Castle agreed. "If it's as you say, then Dick would be the one coming and going. He'd be the one who would likely make some kind of contact with LokSat, or his liaison. If we can track him, he should lead us to LokSat, or at least a step closer to LokSat. And if he likes his fun after conducting business, he should be paying another visit to his mistress soon. We could plant a tracker on his car while he's there."

"Risky," Hayley pointed out. "If he sweeps for bugs he'll know he's been discovered and he might even trace the tracker back to us. I have a better idea, but your wife won't like it."

"If it will work, I don't care if she likes it or not," Castle declared. "What did you have in mind?"

Castle's eyebrows wiggled in evil appreciation as Hayley told him her plan.

* * *

Dick had been in the townhouse for a solid half hour. Using a parabolic microphone, Castle listened to sounds emanating from the bedroom. "They're going at it," he reported. "If he's like most guys, he should end up blissfully in slumberland in the next hour or so, if not less."

Haley grabbed Castle's earphones to listen. "Let's hope he snores so we're certain he's asleep. And she better not be faking it, otherwise she might stay awake after he dozes off."

"She doesn't sound like she's faking it," Castle offered. "But then neither did Meg Ryan in _When Harry Met Sally_."

Hayley looked at him quizzically. "If that's a movie, I don't think I ever caught it. But I can tell you, that when it's her bread and butter, a woman can fake anything. Good muscle control is gold."

"Well that's discouraging to the male ego," Castle opined. "Guess we'll just have to be careful."

"Believe it Castle," Hayley assured him, "before I go in there, I'll be sure they're both out."

Hayley disabled the alarm at the town house and picked the lock. There was no sound of any activity from Dick or his buxom bed mate. With silent steps, she sneaked into the bedroom. Dick's cell phone lay lay on a chair with his pants. Using a backup drive, Hayley copied the data from the phone's memory and put the cell back where it had been. Carefully locking the door behind her, she re-enabled the alarm system and returned to the van.

"Did you get it?" Castle asked.

"Everything," Hayley responded gleefully. "We'll not only know everyone he's been contacting, I'll be able to track his GPS. We've got Dick by his..."

"Dick?" Castle interrupted.

Hayley grinned. "Precisely."

Kate met Castle and Haley at the loft. A map was projected on the large screen in Castle's office with a blinking red dot indicating Dick's movements through the city. "How did you do this?" Kate asked.

Castle raised an eyebrow at her. "Are you sure you want to know?"

Kate considered the question for a moment. "It's probably better that I don't. What have you got?"

"Well aside from tracking our quarry," Castle replied, "we have all the calls he's made. Most of them, as you'd expect, are to burner phones. But they follow a pattern. Our Dick is a creature of habit.

"Dick?" Kate inquired.

"We gave him a code name," Castle explained. "He calls certain numbers on various days at various times. I've been making a spreadsheet. By coordinating his calls with his movements, we may figure out who he's calling, so we can trace pick ups and drop offs of money or instructions. Sooner or later that should give us his connection to LokSat. What about your boy Bankin?"

"He's not my boy," Kate retorted in annoyance. "But he's got all the tech work for Ryan and Esposito to do. And if he gets through that, Bruce has a case and so does Karpowski. Bankin's doing everything Tory used to do and then some. He won't have much time to poke into our business, and if he does, I'll tell him I'm waiting for input from narcotics on new drug traffic in the city. He can report that to Silver."

We should follow his movements too," Castle offered. "Is there any way you can give Hayley a few minutes of access to his phone?"

"Are you kidding?" Kate returned. "Are you trying to out tech him? If you put any kind of a tracer on him he'll be on to you in a minute. It could blow everything."

"Calm down Sweetie," Haley soothed. "I'm just going to copy his sim card like I did with Dickie. He'll keep his card, same serial number, same everything. There won't be anything to find because I won't change anything. And if it makes you feel better, I'll be wearing gloves. There won't be any physical prints either. We're just going to try to control the situation."

"Alright," Kate agreed hesitantly. "Bankin's been helping me out with my morning workouts at the precinct. He usually takes a shower afterward. He seems to like long ones. From what I've heard from Ryan and Esposito, he caterwauls while he's in there. He likes fifties rock, but in the key of H. It should be easy enough to make sure he's out of the way. I have a master access key to all the lockers, one of my privileges as captain. I also have access to the list of locker assignments. His phone should be in his. Castle can get it. The guys are used to seeing Castle around the locker room and you can work in my office. Let's just get all of this done as quickly as possible. I have a bullpen full of detectives. I don't want any of them picking up on anything strange going on."

"Don't worry, Duck. I know the cop mind," Haley assured her. "In and out and Bob's your uncle."


	7. Chapter 7

Finding Thanksgiving

Chapter 7

The precinct was running on a skeleton crew as Thanksgiving approached. Kate had given as many cops the afternoon off as possible, saving the time for the expected conflicts among the frenzied shoppers late Thanksgiving day and on Black Friday. Kate brought Bankin in to hold her heavy bag as she executed her workout in an otherwise deserted gym. She made sure Bankin was as sweaty and bruised as possible, prompting him to spend the maximum amount of time under a soothing hot spray in the shower. The locker room was almost empty when Castle retrieved Bankins's cell phone to the excruciatingly off key strains of Peggy Sue. He passed it to Haley who in the interests of maintaining proximity, had elected to work in a women's stall rather than Kate's office, while Castle stayed on guard with a walkie talkie to make sure the horrendous travesty of Buddy Holly's repertoire didn't come to an end.

Castle need not have worried. Peggy Sue was followed by That'll Be the Day, Maybe Baby, and Love's Made a Fool of You. "You've got that right," Castle muttered during the final song. Hayley signaled Castle and handed the phone back while Bankin was still wailing about crying at night when your baby don't treat you right. Castle just made it out of the room before Bankin returned, mercifully silent, to towel off and get dressed.

Castle stopped briefly at Kate's office to let her know he and Hayley had completed the mission. "You know," he told her, "Bankin's got more to worry about than Silver and LokSat. The ghost of Buddy Holly may came to haunt him. I just hope it doesn't decide to play poltergeist in the precinct."

"I don't know Castle," Kate replied. "Maybe it would give everyone who's left an excuse to get out of here."

Castle raised a Spockish brow. "The gung-ho Captain Beckett wants an excuse to leave her post?"

Kate sighed. "Not feeling so gung-ho right now Castle. This candle's been burned to the middle."

"You could reconsider coming to Thanksgiving dinner," Castle suggested. "A little down time, with a turkey induced siesta might be good for you."

"No Castle, the way things are right now between us that would be too comfortable, too hopeful. It would just be too painful afterward for both of us. You be with your family and I'll keep watch. You should invite Hayley, though. I don't think she has family here."

"I did invite her, but she told me she has plans with friends. I don't know who they are and I get the feeling it might be better that way. It will just be Mother and me and Alexis and a huge turkey - which I have to make sure is thawing properly. Hayley should have some results soon too. So stay in touch in case anything comes up?"

"Absolutely, Castle."

As Castle strode away, Kate closed the door of her office, sank down on her couch, and buried her wet face in her hands.

* * *

The sound of the knife echoed hollowly off the walls of the loft as a solitary Castle cubed bread to toast for croutons for the stuffing. The smell of roasting chestnuts, also for the stuffing, wafted through the air, but contributed none of its usual pre-Christmas cheer. Castle shouldn't have been standing there alone. The kitchen should have been bustling with activity, as it always had been before the day before Thanksgiving. This just wasn't right. Since Kate left, nothing was right. As much as shafts of pain burned through him when Castle considered her deception, he still wanted her back. He hadn't felt this way when he found out Meredith had been cheating on him, or either time he broke up with Gina. Even his break up with Kyra hadn't hurt this much. He put down the knife and took a seat at the table, staring at a glowing pyramid. "You know Lucy, being in love can really suck sometimes."

"I don't really know that Rick," Lucy responded. "My circuits can't love. But there are numerous citations in literature that support your point of view. Oh, Haley's on her way up. Maybe she has clues for you. That should be a distraction."

"Yeah, a welcome one," Rick acknowledged.

Rick opened the door and Haley strode in. "Bankin has been a busy boy and not just on his assignments from Kate. He called several of the same burners that Dick called. Oh and Dick goes by Richard Marley. A friend of mine hacked the DMV and found him."

"So we really can call him Dick. You have some interesting friends, Haley. They could make a good book," Castle proposed. "Nikki Heat is running pretty dry these days."

Hayley shook her head doubtfully. "I don't think they'd fancy that much. They prefer to stay out of public notice. But you shouldn't give up on Nikki Heat yet. You told me once you love Kate like a house afire. Learning to read people is my stock and trade. Whatever has happened, she feels the same about you. That's not something to be thrown away."

"Listen to the woman, Rick," Lucy chimed in.

"I am listening, Lucy," Castle retorted. "But Hayley, let's get back to Bankin's phone. If he was calling the same numbers as Dick, he could be working both sides of the street, for Silver and for LokSat. Maybe that's why Silver never had any luck. Bankin was throwing monkey wrenches into her investigation just like he's probably been doing to Kate."

Haley nodded. "That's what I was thinking as well. I put a call into her. She should be joining us soon."

"She is," Lucy piped up. "She just came in the back door, Rick. She should be up here in seventy-three seconds."

Kate's key clicked in the lock. She threw her coat on the back of a chair. "Oh good, Hayley, you're here. What are we going to do?"

"Well usually when you find out you've got a cuckoo in the nest, you get rid of it," Hayley offered.

"Kate can't fire him for no reason and as tempting as it might be, we can't just kill Bankin," Castle pointed out. "He's obviously playing both sides of the street. LokSat may have planted him with Silver to keep an eye on her. If we take him out, we alert everyone. We'll have guns blazing at us from two directions. We have to use him. We had one link to LokSat. His intersection with Dick gives us two. We follow both their movements and when one or the other leads us to LokSat we call in the cavalry to take him down."

Hayley's face twisted in confusion. "Who's the cavalry?"

"Our contact in the CIA," Castle answered grimly as he and Kate exchanged looks. "Believe me. He's no one you ever want to meet - and definitely no one you ever want pissed at you."

"Castle's right," Kate agreed. "It's better you stay as far away from any information about him as you can. But before we take that step, I feed Bankin some information. I'll tell him that the DEA gave Narcotics some tips on drug operations, throw in a few of the places Dick has been. That should jar him, maybe into notifying his own boss." She gazed questioningly at Haley. "You cloned his phone, right? We'll know whomever he calls, won't we?"

"We will," Hayley confirmed.

Kate pulled out her own cell phone. "Good. Let's poke the bear."

Castle drew a deep breath as the creases in his face deepened to ridges. "Let's just hope we don't end up as the bear plate special."


	8. Chapter 8

Finding Thanksgiving

Chapter 8

Beckett's stomach was rebelling at the sight of the frozen turkey dinner she was considering nuking in the break room, when she heard a commotion in the bullpen. Two men and a woman, in chef's coats, had arrived bearing multiple containers emitting tempting aromas, and inquiring where to set up. The confused detectives waved them toward Kate. "I'm Captain Beckett. I'm in charge. What are you doing here?" Kate demanded.

"Oh, Captain Beckett," the female chef acknowledged, "this is for you." She handed Kate an envelope with her name emblazoned in silver calligraphy. It bore a wax seal in the shape of a turkey. Kate unfolded the note inside.

 _For you and all who stand guard with you at the Twelfth Precinct on_ _this day. No one should have to miss Thanksgiving dinner._

 _Rick_

The tables in the break room were efficiently covered in white cloths, A turkey carving station was established alongside serving dishes for yams, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, salad, and green beans. A dessert table was laden with pumpkin and pecan pies as well midnight blackout cake and fresh fruit. A large ice bucket was filled with sparkling cider.

Jim Beckett stuck his head into the doorway. "Katie, Rick called and said you'd be here and suggested I join you. He didn't want you to be alone for the holiday."

Kate blinked back tears that threatened to overflow her eyes. For all his anger, Castle did care. When they got through the mess she'd caused, maybe there was hope for them. Suddenly the sights and smells of the buffet made her ravenous. After hugging her father, she beckoned the other cops into the break room and called the desk sergeant to send up anyone who was free.

* * *

Castle stood over the perfectly browned twenty pound turkey with the latest in carving knives, trying his best to look enthusiastic for Martha and Alexis. It was good to know that if he and Kate couldn't be together in person, at least he'd managed a way to be with her in spirit, but it wasn't the same. Still, he would get to watch Alexis attack her drumstick with fervor and his mother eat just enough to maintain the eternally svelte body on which she prided herself - just like always.

The Castle family was just finishing the pumpkin pie Alexis had lovingly produced when Castle got an alert from Hayley. Bankin has received a call from Dick and they were both on the move. From their GPS's they appeared to be heading in the same direction, but she couldn't establish their destination. As soon as she did, she'd let Rick and Kate know.

* * *

Dick and Bankin were both on the trajectory for a suburban shopping center where busy shoppers eager for pre-Black Friday deals would never notice an extra car or two. Haley, Rick, and Kate took similar advantage of the bedlam. They gathered in Hayley's van. "I hacked into the security cameras in the parking lot," Haley explained, but both Dick and Bankin probably know enough to avoid them. We'll track the cars and observe them by eye. The zoom on the camera and the binoculars should allow us to stay far enough away to avoid being spotted." A warning beeped. "Dick is approaching now. Bankin is still on the way."

Dick parked on the outer edge of the lines of cars in the lot, but not so far away as to appear isolated. He looked like just another unlucky shopper who hadn't made it in time to get a good spot. He waited in the car, appearing to flip through a store circular planning his path to the his bargains of choice. A few moments later Bankin showed up wearing jeans, a baseball cap, a plaid wool jacket, and carrying a sports bag. To anyone looking, he would seem posed to do battle for the best large screen TV or cell phone. He and Dick greeted each other like brothers in battle. Bankin slid in beside Dick, taking pages of the circular to share. Underneath the cover of the gaily printed newsprint, Dick passed packets of money and spreadsheets to Bankin.

"Bollocks!" Hayley swore. "I can't tell what they're doing."

"Well they're certainly not here to shop," Castle declared.

Bankin left Dick's car. "That bag is a lot fuller than it was when he got in. Money, drugs, or both, Dick gave him something," Kate noted grimly. "He's in whatever this is up to his neck."

"And Kate, he's too close to you," Castle added. "He's gone from a watchdog to a major player. He has access to all the N.Y.P.D. records along with everything else he's into. He knows almost everything about you, Kate. He could turn on you at any moment. We need to put an end to this."

"How Castle?" Kate asked. "We still don't know who LokSat is. If I put distance between me and Bankin he'll know something is up. He could send someone after me or all of us, or come after us himself. We'll just have to keep tracking him and Dick until one of them leads us to LokSat. Then we take down the operation."

Castle put a hand on her arm. "I hate this. This was worse than standing next to you when you were on that bomb. At least then I knew what the danger was and where it was coming from. Right now anything could happen at any time."

"Kate," Hayley suggested softly. "You might want to consider staying at the loft. Bankin doesn't need to know and I can reconfigure Lucy to monitor everything. You'll know about anything or anyone that even gets close. There's no protection in that rat hole where you're living."

Castle drew back in surprised horror. "Rat hole? Kate where have you been staying?"

"Castle, it's not a rat hole," Kate protested. "It's an SRO. Even a captain's salary won't go very far to rent a place in Manhattan and I didn't want to put my father or Lanie in danger by staying with them."

"Kate, SRO's are the places where we find dead bodies, or the people who make them dead. Come back to the loft," Castle urged. "We can cope with whatever issues there are with your being there. I can't deal with you being alone and unprotected in some roach motel."

Kate reached for his hand and he let her take it. "Rick, are you sure?"

Castle engulfed her hand in both of his own. "Kate, I never said I stopped loving you. I don't even think that's possible."

Hayley coughed. "Well if you two have that sorted, we'd best be on our way so I can get things programmed."

* * *

After making her adjustments to Lucy's system, Hayley left the loft, locking the door behind her. Rick and Kate were left alone together. Kate picked up a duffel bag with things she had brought from her SRO and walked toward the stairs to the upper level. "Castle, I can go get settled in the guest room."

Castle watched her begin to make the climb, his stomach roiling. "Kate," he called after her. "You're not a guest. You're still my wife and this is still your home."

Kate turned back. "Rick, what are you saying?"

"I'm saying that just thinking about losing you makes me die inside. I still can't imagine my life without you. So somehow, and I still have no idea how, we're going to work out a way to get past all this."

A/N If you celebrate U.S. Thanksgiving, I hope you had a great one.


	9. Chapter 9

Finding Thanksgiving

Chapter 9

Castle was dragged to the kitchen by his caffeine seeking nose. A fully dressed Kate held out a fresh mug of coffee. "I'm glad I can see you before I leave."

"Kate, it's only six-thirty. Why so early?"

"Black Friday, Castle," Kate explained. "In some places people have been camping out all night. They're cold and tired and hungry. It makes for bad impulse control. There may not be homicides, but now that I'm captain I'm in charge of a lot more than that. Even without thinking about LokSat, it's going to be a very busy day. Are you going shopping?"

Castle guffawed. "Are you kidding?" he asked, flexing his fingers. "It's Castle be nimble. I can find everything - or almost everything - I need on line. I'll be safe behind Castle walls from being trampled by desperate bargain hunters. I need to get some writing done too. If this situation has any kind of an upside, it's given me P.I. - spy crossover scenarios for Derrick Storm."

"I'll be surrounded by cops all day, but I don't like the thought of you being here alone," Kate fretted.

"Kate, after Hayley's adjustments to Lucy, I'll be fine." Castle assured her. "And Lucy actually makes good conversation, as well as looking up all the stuff I used to have to google. Go to the precinct. Do your captain thing and keep an eye on Bankin. Hayley's monitoring Dick. If anything pops, we'll know about it."

* * *

Kate was organizing the files on her desk when she got a notification from Health Management Division that Vikram Singh had called in sick. She immediately called Hayley.

"If Bankin's sick, he's not lying in bed," Hayley reported after checking Bankin's GPS. "He's on the move. Right now he's entering the George Washington Bridge."

"That could mean he's on the way to Teterboro Airport," Kate speculated "if he were going for the ports, he'd take one of the tunnels."

"You know the area a lot better than I do," Hayley acknowledged. "I'll keep you and Rick apprised."

Kate's breath caught in her throat. "Hayley, I don't want Castle going after Bankin."

"Kate," Hayley responded. "I'm sorry, but Rick is the one who hired me. He's the one who pays me, and very well. My first responsibility is to report to him. But Duck, he's a lot tougher than you give him credit for. What those mercs of Silver's put him through would have reduced many men to a whimpering puddle. He kept his head and he pushed through all of it. He did that for you. And I've seen him on the gun range too. He's good, Kate. He's steady and he's sure. I would never fancy being his target."

Kate smiled in remembrance of her early days with Castle when he'd fooled her into thinking she needed to teach him how to shoot. His marksmanship had blown her away. Still, though the gun in his office was licensed, he had no New York City concealed carry permit and usually didn't have a gun on him. He no longer wore his "WRITER" emblazoned bullet proof vest either. Nothing Hayley could say would push the acid rising in Kate's throat back where it belonged. "Alright then, Hayley, can you at least update me as soon as you've updated him?"

"Unless he instructs me otherwise," Hayley agreed. "That I can do."

* * *

Castle watched the blinking red dot on the big screen in his office. Hayley had sent him the images of Bankin's travel. He'd picked up Route 95 and then Route 80. The surest bet was for Teterboro. From there he could go almost anywhere. Castle brought up Haley's report of Bankin's recent calls on his laptop. There were no numbers he hadn't seen before except one, WFA Services. A deep web search revealed that WFA stood for "We Fly Anyone." They were an airplane charter service who prided themselves on their confidentiality, just the sort company a spy/drug dealer would love. He could pay them in cash, perhaps cash received from Dick the day before, and leave no trail. Castle looked up at the dot again. Bankin was definitely headed for the airport. There would be no heading him off, but they could certainly track where he went.

After hovering at Teterboro, the red dot was off again, moving for less than an hour before stopping. If the plane had landed at an airstrip, it was a private one, not marked on the map. Castle enlarged the view to see what was nearby. "I'll be damned," he muttered to himself. "Langley, he's headed for CIA headquarters. He's probably going to spin some tale for Silver. But just in case..." Castle brought up his web site and typed in another reference to Casino Royale.

* * *

The temperature in New York City, to the delight of the hordes of shoppers, was almost springlike. It made Castle's wait in the park almost bearable. "Where's Kate?" Hunt asked after he took his position behind Castle.

"She's busy running her precinct," Castle answered. "Bankin is involved with LokSat's drug operation. He's had direct contact with their main man in New York. Now he's in Langley. I need to know what he's doing there."

"You think he's playing both sides of the street?" Hunt inquired.

"I'm sure of it," Castle replied. "Silver may think he's her man, but he's working for LokSat. They might even be meeting up in Langley. Can you find out who he's talking to?"

Hunt's lips narrowed. "That's a tall order, son. You worked with the CIA enough to know that everything is compartmentalized. I'll see what chatter I can pick up, but if two agents want to meet unobserved, they'll be unobserved. How did you even know Bankin's in Virginia?"

"I'm tracking his phone," Castle explained with a hint of pride. "I had an operative clone it. He has no idea we got anywhere near it."

Hunt cracked a smile. "So you picked up something from the old man after all. Son, if I get anything I'll be in touch."

* * *

"What the Hell is he doing in Langley," Kate wondered as she surveyed the dot on Castle's screen, after she returned to the loft that evening.

"He spent most of the day at the official address for CIA Headquarters," Castle reported. "He also went to a veggie-burger joint and a medical clinic called First Resort. He might have been checking on part of his drug operation or he might just have been renewing his insulin supply. You did tell me he's a diabetic."

"Yeah," Kate confirmed. "He is, or at least he said he is. That may be another part of his cover. Health Management is assuming that he's more vulnerable to infection because of it. They aren't requiring a doctor's note unless he's out more than three days."

"That's convenient," Castle commented, "although he could probably fake one anyway. Or he could be faking the disease. I did some research on that for a story. For certain individuals, certain drugs can cause their blood sugar to skyrocket. He might have simulated the condition to look weaker and more vulnerable than he is."

"You could be right, Castle," Kate mused. "When he and I were on the run - or I thought we were - he kept complaining about feeling sick and dizzy. I thought he was kind of a wimp. Also he didn't seem to be too bright to travel without his insulin. I stole some for him. I guess you know that. Alexis figured it out. But anyway, what serious diabetic makes a mistake like that? It all could have been part of the show. And I fell for it."

Castle put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "We're pulling back the curtain now, Kate. And part of that should be to check into First Resort. If he was there for something other than controlling his blood sugar, they could be part of his operation we knew nothing about before."

Kate reached up to grasp his hand. "Castle this web just keeps getting bigger and bigger."

"Yeah," Castle agreed. "But it also gives us more places to break it."


	10. Chapter 10

Finding Thanksgiving

Chapter 10

Kate, Rick, and Hayley sat around the table in the loft, their work spread out in front of them with Lucy in the middle. "So Bankin's back in the city and I'm pretending I never knew he was gone," Kate began.

"Our CIA source says Bankin did have a meeting with Silver," Castle added. "That wasn't regarded as anything unusual or noteworthy. If he had a meeting with any other agent, other than to say hello, no one seemed to know about it, but that's not conclusive. How about First Resort?"

"They're privately owned Rick," Lucy piped up. "Between that and the privacy laws, information is limited. They have clinics all over the Eastern Seaboard."

"There's a lot more to it than that, Lucy." Hayley put in. "Their clinics are mostly in downscale suburban neighborhoods with light police presence. They operate extended hours and since they advertise that they take walk-ins, there is considerable traffic in and out of the clinics, all unmonitored."

"Wow!" Castle exclaimed, "the perfect place to support the rise in the use of heroin in what's left of the middle class. And with most of the attention turned to poorer urban neighborhoods, they could operate almost with impunity."

"The problem is, this is all conjecture," Kate pointed out. "We still don't actually know if Bankin was at that clinic in Virginia for anything other than health reasons. First Resort could be exactly what it purports to be."

"So I break into one of their clinics and have a look around," Hayley suggested. "If they are selling heroin there should signs be of it. If I find any heroin, I can pull a sample and look for a match to the chemical fingerprint you've got."

Castle sighed and the lines bracketing the bridge of his nose deepened. "Hayley, that's a lot more dangerous than copying Dick's phone while he was sleeping with his mistress. You could get caught by the police - or worse, by the bad guys. If these people are part of the group Bankin's been involved with, they wouldn't hesitate to kill you. I can't ask you to do it."

Hayley smiled, shaking her head. "You're not asking Rick. I'm already in this and have been from the moment you asked me to help you find Kate. If Bankin decides to tie up loose ends, he'll come after me too. It won't help to fanny around. Getting him first is as much my best chance as it is yours and Kate's. And I'm a recovery artist. I've broken into to places much more secure than a medical clinic. I'll take a gander at one tonight, scope out the security, and make a plan. No worries."

* * *

Hayley pulled into a strip mall in a working class neighborhood on Long Island, at one A.M..The First Resort Clinic was closed and dark, but a bar next to it stayed open until four A.M., so it would be unlikely her car would be noticed among those of the patrons. She carried a Mag Lite and an infrared camera. The clinic had two doors, one facing the sidewalk that led along the various establishments and another leading to the alley in the back, occupied by dumpsters. Hayley turned her attention to the back entrance. Although unlike some of the other doors along the alley it bore no emblem announcing a security system, it was clearly wired so an alarm signal would be sent if opened. She recognized the system. The alert would be sent through wi fi, not a land line, so cutting phone wires would not be helpful. She'd need a jammer, but there was one among the equipment she kept at her storage unit. The lock itself was not complex, she could pick it. She suspected infrared sensors inside would detect her movement as soon as she did, but she could jam their signal as well. The job did not appear to present a great challenge. She returned to her car as a group of men were exiting the bar, and pulled quickly away.

* * *

"How are you feeling Vikram?" Kate asked as she walked into Tech.

Bankin looked away from his screen. "I spent Friday with my head in the toilet but I had the weekend to get over it. Just a little fatigued now."

Kate gave no sign that she knew he was lying. "Well take it easy. Ryan and Espo broke their case, and a lot of the others are trying to sneak in time to catch Cyber Monday bargains, so there isn't too much on your plate right now - unless you have something on our project."

Bankin shook his head wryly. "Sorry, the way I was this weekend, I couldn't even come close to getting anything there."

Kate nodded. "Okay, take care." She returned to her office cursing under her breath.

* * *

"You should be writing." the screen saver on Castle's laptop reminded him.

"It's getting to be a computerized conspiracy around here," he complained to the empty air. "My laptop and my operating system both tell me what to do."

Lucy's voice came from the great room. "I heard that Rick. You know unlike humans, we only do what we're programmed to do."

"Touché," Castle agreed, joining her at the table. "I wish I could program myself. It would be a lot easier to be with Kate."

"Have you forgiven her, Rick?" Lucy asked.

Castle stroked the stubble he'd yet to scrape from his jawline. "I think I have, although sometimes the anger just... But the trouble is I'm still not sure I can trust her. And worse, I'm not sure she really trusts me."

"But you two love each other, right?" Lucy inquired.

"Lucy, I have no doubt about that. But rebuilding trust, that's harder than love. It's certainly harder than wanting to make love. I still feel like tackling her every time she comes through the door. But until I know that she really believes she can count on me and she isn't trying to shield me with yet another lie, we can be together, but we're not really going to be together. Does that make any sense?"

"Not to me," Lucy responded, "but it might make sense to another human. What are you going to do Rick?'

Castle shrugged. "Just keep going until I can figure it out. Kate should be back soon, if she didn't have any emergencies at the precinct."

"She is back, Rick," Lucy informed him. "She just let herself in the back door downstairs."

Kate turned her key in the lock and pushed open the door with more force than was necessary. "I'm glad Hayley is going to break into that First Resort on Long Island tonight. We really need a path to finish solving this thing. You would not believe Bankin! Not only did he lie to my face about where he was on Friday, actually the whole weekend, but he's been trying to get my sympathy by putting on his sick act all day. I just wanted to scream at him to stop it." She headed for the stairs. "I need a shower. I can't stand much more deception."

Castle heard the door of an upper level bathroom slam. He sighed, shaking his head. "Lucy, I wonder if she understands the irony."

"Rick, I don't understand what irony you're talking about." Lucy admitted. "It's a very human concept, difficult for my circuits to grasp. But I'll take your word that some exists."

Castle laid his palm on the glowing tip of the pyramid. "Lucy, you can definitely believe me. An irony exists, big time."


	11. Chapter 11

Finding Thanksgiving

Chapter 11

Hayley again parked her car amid those of the bar patrons before making her way to the back door of the clinic. She quickly activated her jammer. She preceded carefully with the lock, wary of leaving scratches or any other signs that a break-in had taken place. One inside, she scanned for cameras and sensors that might function independently of the system she had jammed. She saw none. "Minor outpost," she thought to herself, easily disarming the alarm system.

She gazed around to get the layout of the facility. There was a waiting room, marked by the typical slightly battered chairs and outdated magazines. She didn't expect to find anything useful there. The treatment rooms were sparsely furnished, containing little except examination tables, blood pressure cuffs, glove dispensers, and paraphernalia for drawing blood. The storage rooms were more promising, holding syringes and locked cabinets, which Hayley found easy to jimmy open. One contained a shelf of small white packets of white powder. "The heroin," she thought to herself, "but individual doses, probably counted and weighed." With gloved hands, she grabbed one, carefully slitting it with a sharp knife. She pulled a pocket scale from one of many pockets and weighed the packet. Then using a sharp knife, she slit it open, removing just enough powder for testing. From another pocket, she produced a plastic bag of milk sugar. She added just enough to the packet to bring it to it's original weight. Finally from a third pocket she pulled an electric sealer, using it to restore the packet to it's original form. She replaced the packet in the cabinet and re-locked it.

Glancing around again to make sure she had left nothing disturbed, she headed for the controls of the alarm system. She re-armed it, making sure there was no record of her entry, then during the countdown to full activation, she made her way out, leaving a locked door behind her. Finally she turned off her jammer and headed back to her car.

A bartender was escorting two staggering patrons out to a cab. Hayley slid behind the wheel of her car, never aware of the notice he took of the dark lithe woman who had never entered the bar.

* * *

Hayley arrived at the loft in the early morning hours to present her acquisition and make her report. "I can have my lab run a profile of this and we can compare it to what you have," she suggested to Kate and a slightly sleepy Castle.

"You know, considering everything we've seen of Bankin, we might have a problem there," Kate mused. "He was handling the records of analysis of the drugs we confiscated from Simmons' operation. If he's working with LokSat, he could have altered them so we'd never get a match. If we hadn't uncovered his relationship with Dick and his jaunt out of town, I would never be the wiser."

"So what do we do?" Castle asked.

"Not we, me," Kate replied. "I need to get another sample of Simmons' drugs. Then Hayley's lab can run them against each other."

Castle put up a hand. "Oh no, Kate. Not another lone operation. It was bad enough that Hayley pulled one. Whenever you decide to do things on your own is when everything goes south. Let's figure out how to do this together. What's the situation?"

Kate chewed on her lip."The original drugs were sent to our central facility for disposal. They're probably long gone. But the evidence gathered from the auto shop and his other operations would still be archived. I can get in there to research a case with no questions asked. Some of the small equipment should still be contaminated with the drugs. I should be able to take a piece or two."

"Wouldn't you have to sign it out?" Castle asked. "Wouldn't that create a record?"

"I don't know that I can help that," Kate responded.

"We can help that, Kate. There's a fire door in the archives isn't there?" Castle wondered.

"There is," Kate agreed, "but that means an alarm goes off if I open it."

"Can you disable it, Hayley?" Castle inquired.

"I can," Hayley confirmed, "But I'd want to just temporarily bridge the connection. That would take both hands. Kate would have to hand off whatever she finds to you."

Castle nodded. "Right, then Kate leaves empty handed the way she came in. No one will know that anything is missing. Can we do it this morning?" He yawned. "Later this morning?" he corrected himself.

"If Hayley has the equipment she needs, we should be able to. Do you Hayley?" Kate queried.

"All in my car from last night," Hayley confirmed, attempting to stifle an answering yawn to Castle's. "But I'm going to need tea. Strong hot tea."

Castle headed toward the stove. "Coming up."

* * *

Castle was putting a late supper on the table when Rule Brittania emanated from the cell in his pocket. Hayley ignored any greetings or pleasantries. "Rick, we may have a problem."

"Wasn't there enough drug residue on the equipment Kate filched?" Castle inquired, anxiously.

"That's not what needs sorting." Hayley replied. "We should hear something from the lab tomorrow. What concerns me more is an increase in phone calls to Bankin, some from numbers we haven't seen before. It looks like something's happening."

"Responses to his trip to Virginia?" Castle suggested.

"Not likely. They were New York numbers. This is something local," Hayley asserted. "Just make sure you and Kate are extra cautious."

Invisible to Hayley, Castle shook his head. "If I knew how to get Kate to be cautious, we wouldn't be having this conversation. But I'll try to bribe her with food. Just let us know as soon as you get something on the drugs."

"Quite," Hayley promised. Putting away her phone she realized it had been many hours since she'd had anything resembling a meal herself. Peering into her small refrigerator, she noted a bottle of beer and not much else. "Bollocks! I never make it to the shops." Grabbing her keys, she left her apartment and took the elevator to the ground floor. Too late she detected a sweet but irritating odor in the air. She was grabbed behind and a chloroform soaked cloth pressed over her face. Before her consciousness faded completely, she got in a couple of good kicks.

* * *

Kate paced her office before finally picking up her cell phone to call Castle. "Have you heard from Hayley? It's been all morning. Her lab must have something by now."

"Not a word," Castle replied, "and I've called her five times. It's just gone to voice mail. I'm in the car on the way to her apartment now. I'll call you when I get there."

"Castle be careful," Kate urged. "If something happened to her, then they know..."

"Kate, let's not panic yet. I'll call you as soon as I get there," Castle promised. "Five minutes at the most."

It was a long five minutes until Kate's phone rang. She could hear the fear in Castle's voice. "Kate, Hayley's not here and her place has been tossed. The hard drives have been pulled from all her equipment. Whoever was here, they know Hayley was monitoring Bankin and Dick. Kate, everything we've been doing is blown. Hayley might be dead and we may soon be too."


	12. Chapter 12

Finding Thanksgiving

Chapter 12

Tightly clutching her phone, Kate hurried to Tech. The room was locked. Kate summoned maintenance for an emergency key and as soon as she got through the door, she could see that the screens were blank and the room empty. Wires had hurriedly been pulled and equipment disabled. Her voice trembled as she spoke into her cell. "Rick, Bankin trashed Tech. He's gone. I'm coming and I'm going to bring the cavalry. Just stay on with me until I get there."

Gumball flashing and siren screaming, Kate led a group of blue and whites to Hayley's apartment. She threw her arms around Rick, who did nothing to resist. "We need to get you back to the precinct."

"No, we don't," Castle objected. "We need to find Hayley. Look, I've been thinking. Whoever took her wanted to find out what she knew. Otherwise they would have killed her on the spot and they wouldn't have needed to take her hard drives, they could have just destroyed them. Bankin has got to be behind the whole thing. We find him, we stand a good chance of finding her."

"Castle, I've already put out an APB. Airports, trains, they've all been alerted. The whole force and the State Troopers are looking for him. What can we do that they can't?"

"Haley left a back-up to her software on my computer at the loft.," Castle explained. "If Bankin still has his phone, we track can him."

It took precious time to reach the loft and for Castle to get Haley's tracking system up, but the reward was a glowing red dot on the screen with an address in the Catskills. Castle stared at it for a moment before closing his eyes to bring a memory to the fore. "I know that place. I used to go skiing there as a kid. It was one of the resorts that fell on hard times and had to close. It's actually a great place for an emergency retreat. It's on the top of a hill with only one road going in. It would be almost impossible to get in undetected. The Tech room couldn't have been trashed and locked long before you found it and it's at least a two hour drive up there. Bankin's probably just arrived. He hasn't had time to scrub or decrypt her hard drives. If that's where Hayley is, there are other people involved, maybe some of LokSat's other operatives."

"With a layout like that, I can't send troopers in there. They'd see them coming and kill Hayley, then the CIA would probably cover up the whole mess like they did with Sophia Turner. Look, Castle," Kate urged, "if there was ever a time for one of the crazy scenarios like you write for Derrick Storm, this is it."

Castle paced, scrubbing his hands over his face. "Even in the Catskills it hasn't been cold enough to build up a layer of snow. There's a run on the backside of the hill behind the lodge. I hiked down it once with some of my friends. When there's no snow on it, it's just a bunch of little rocks. Even if they have cameras set up on the road and in the woods, there'd be no place to put one on that stretch. We could take a helicopter in just close enough so they wouldn't hear it, then we could try to make it up the slope. It would be hard going, much worse than going down. Those rocks would slide under our feet. But we could try. We have to try."

"We could take Espo with us," Kate suggested. "He's an expert climber, and if there's a shot to take, he'd be the one who could make it. And we station a squad at the bottom of the hill to call in - if we can."

* * *

"Esposito took point on the climb with Kate in the middle and Castle bringing up the rear. The slope was even worse than Castle had remembered. Even with no snow, it was freezing. The wind burned every inch of uncovered skin and every time they slipped, the rocks cut and bruised them. Though they had less than a mile to go, the top of the hill seemed light years away. But there was no giving up. Castle had brought Hayley into LokSat's web and if there was a chance of getting her out, it was his responsibility. Esposito pulled his rifle from his shoulder and looked through the scope. "I don't see any movement up there," he reported. "If they think anyone is coming, they're not showing any signs of it." Finally they reached the rear of the old ski lodge. Esposito pointed to himself and made a vee with his fingers in front of his eyes, signalling he was beginning reconnaissance. "Nothing moving," he whispered when he returned. "But there are cameras in the woods pointed down the hill and at the road. No one's getting in any way except the way we came. There are cameras over the doors too.

Castle pointed to a triangular wooden structure built into the ground. "Not all the doors. That goes to the basement. There's a staircase from there that goes up to the kitchen. That was the dwarfs' lair when we played Lord of the Rings. It was old even then. The stairs might be rotted through by now. But it sounds like it's our only shot."

"Espo, you stay out here, make sure we don't get any company," Kate instructed. "Castle and I will try the basement." The old doors were secured with a padlock, but Castle picked it easily. "You've been practicing," Kate noted with admiration.

"Yeah well Hayley's been giving me pointers," Castle replied. "Let's hope her investment paid off."

The basement reeked of mold and the steps down to it were spongy under their feet. A mini Mag Lite in hand, Castle gingerly led the way into the dank gloom. The concrete floor was cracked and uneven from the freezing and thawing of many winters. They picked their way across it to the crumbling stairs, anchored by steel posts and supports. Boards were cracked and broken and the whole bottom section of treads was missing. Kate ran her light over the wreck in dismay. "Castle, how are we going to get up that?"

Castle shined his light around the cavernous room. "They used to keep all kinds of stuff down here, including spare cable for the lifts. Maybe there's some left. If we can find it, maybe we can rig something to help us climb up. Flashbacks of spiders crawling on his face invading his mind, Castle winced as they searched the cobweb covered cabinets and shelves.

"Castle," Kate called softly. "I think I found it, but you're going to have to help me." The spool of steel rope weighed well over a hundred pounds. Together, Castle and Kate brought it, and tool that were with it, to the stairs.

"Kate, I'm going to let you walk all over me again. I can put you on my shoulders," Castle proposed. "If you can get loops of cable over the posts sticking out at the top of the stairs, we'll have a way to pull ourselves over all the damaged parts without falling to our deaths. Do you trust me to hold you?"

Kate looked at him incredulously. "Of course Castle, I always have. And if this works, I'm never going to tease you about watching every episode of _MacGyver_ again."

Kate's hiking boots dug into Castle's shoulders, but he held her steady as she managed to secure the cables. Grateful for the gloves protecting their hands, they both made their way up to the more sturdy wood at the top of the stairs. The door appeared unlocked, but didn't move when Kate cautiously pushed against it. "There was a latch on the other side. It's probably still there," Castle told her, "but I know how to slip it." Castle pulled his Swiss Army knife from his pocket and extended the longest blade. He inserted it between the door and the frame, below the lock, and worked it upward. "Kate, push now."

The door opened a crack. Light spilled through and they could hear Hayley turning the air blue as she insisted to her captors that she knew nothing of their operation. Castle exhaled a heavy breath. "At least she's alive."

A/N I can't say I ever navigated up a dry ski run like that, but I did have to walk down one after a three day hike in the Catskills one summer when I was much younger. It was tough and a friend and I had tears in our eyes when we reached the bottom together. I would not envy Castle, Kate, and Espo one bit. If you need a point of reference, the Catskills were where the movie _Dirty Dancing_ was supposed to take place.


	13. Chapter 13

Finding Thanksgiving

Chapter 13

"Castle, how many of them do you hear?" Kate whispered.

"I think I heard two men laughing and neither of them sounded like Bankin, but there could be someone else just being quiet," Castle supposed.

Kate nodded."Yeah, if we're going to figure out how to take those guys out, we need to get eyes on them."

"We can do that. They're in the VIP dining room. Besides the main service door, there's a butler's pantry that opens from the kitchen and has a second door out there. There's a little peep hole so the staff will know when to serve," Castle related. Kate looked at him quizzically and Castle grinned smugly. "Never underestimate the power of kids' nosiness or imaginative play. My friends and I learned every inch of this place." Castle cracked the entrance from the basement a little wider and pointed to a door. "That pantry led to the Shire."

"Okay Castle, stay here," Kate instructed. "I'm going to try to get a look"

"Wouldn't it be better if I did it?" Castle suggested. "I know where I'm going, you don't."

The air caught in Kate's chest as fear constricted her lungs. She reached for her backup gun and handed it to him. "Alright, but Rick go slowly and be careful," she cautioned nervously. "As old and falling apart as this place is, the floors probably creak or you could knock something loose."

Castle brushed her cheek with a fingertip. "Quiet as a mouse." Kate held her breath as Castle made his way to the pantry. She could hear the conversation of the men in the room beyond and prayed that their noise would cover any sounds Castle might make. After what seemed an eternity Castle returned."There are just two. They have Hayley tied up. There's no sign of Bankin. He might be in another room, especially if he set up computers somewhere. If we shoot, he could hear it. We need some kind of a distraction so we can take them down. You wouldn't have a teargas grenade in your pocket would you?"

Kate smiled wryly. "Fresh out."

Light flashed through Castle's eyes. "Wait, I have an idea. It looks like they closed this place down without cleaning it out. There were still dishes and linens in the pantry. They might still have cleaning stuff under the sink in the kitchen."

"You want to scrub them to death?" Kate asked.

"No, but maybe if we're really lucky, we make our own teargas. Back in my student days when I was trying to get the wreckage from the previous tenants out of my first apartment, I produced some by accident a couple of times." Castle returned to the kitchen and squatting on his haunches, pulled open a cabinet. He searched through the aged bottles and cans before grabbing three. "Here," he declared gleefully, returning to Kate. "I've got bleach. The oomph may have gone out of it, but we can pep it up with this chlorine cleanser. Hmm, they don't even make this stuff anymore."

"Castle," Kate interjected, "stay on track."

"I am," Castle retorted. "This old stuff was much more noxious too. For us, that's a good thing. We add the cleanser to the bleach. Then at the last minute, we add some of this stuff that cleans off lime. It's acid and it it will make the bleach spew chlorine gas. We shake the bottle up, take the cap off and toss it in. Then when they start to cough, you and I come from the two doors and take those guys down."

Kate looked at the old containers skeptically. "Castle, are you sure?"

"As sure as I can be," Castle answered, his voice low but intense.

"Okay," Kate agreed, "but Castle we're going to have to do this just right and hit those guys quickly and at exactly the same time. If they manage to alert anyone else, we'll never be able to get Hayley free or have time to call in backup."

Castle put his hands on her shoulders. "Kate, we've had to do tougher things. We can do this."

Castle tossed his improvised weapon from the pantry door. At the sound of coughing, he charged at the nearest thug, with Kate simultaneously springing from the kitchen. Castle knocked his man to the ground and took him out with a single punch to the jaw. Kate tackled her quarry, rendered him silent with a chop across his throat then knocked him unconscious with the butt of her pistol. Castle hurriedly screwed the cap back on his gas generator, but not before he and Kate were coughing and teary-eyed.

Kate cut Hayley loose. "Can you walk?" Castle inquired, his words rasping from his throat.

Hayley swiped at her eyes and nodded. With Kate leading the way, Castle supported Hayley downward through their improvised escape route.

Kate emerged to be immediately greeted by the barrel of Esposito's rifle. "Javi, it's us. We've got Hayley. Call in the reinforcements."

Armored troopers stormed the hotel, bringing out the two men Castle and Kate had taken down as well as Bankin and several other henchmen. The prisoners were loaded into cars for transport back to the city. Esposito volunteered to accompany Hayley back. One of the troopers delivered Kate and Castle back to Kate's unit.

Castle watched the other vehicles drive away. "I guess it's just you and me." Kate slid behind the wheel and Castle took shotgun beside her. Kate drove in silence, finding her way through the rural roads. Suddenly she pulled over. "Something wrong?" Castle asked.

"No," Kate responded, "something's right, or at least it was right back there. Castle, to do what we did to get Hayley out of there, we had to work together the way we used to, feeling each others' rhythm, trusting each other to make the right move. Are we back, or at least finding our way back? Are we partners again?"

Castle gazed at the hopeful look in Kate's eyes and realized that sometime during their rescue mission, the anger that had been steadily churning in his gut since he discovered why she'd chosen to leave him, had receded. He tried to pinpoint the moment it had happened, but there hadn't been one moment. It had been a series of them. Her acceptance of his plan to approach the lodge had been one. Her unquestioning faith in his ability to support her in a precarious position in the basement had been another. But the last and most important had been the trust she had given him to execute his part to free Hayley. It was as she had said: their rhythm had been restored. They could function as one whole again, instead of two jaggedly broken halves. Castle reached for her hand. "I think we're moving in the right direction. Let's keep moving and see where it takes us." Their lips met awkwardly as they leaned across the center console.

"Rick," Kate murmured, "Bankin has already asked for a lawyer. So did his buddies. That means we won't even be able to question them until their attorneys show up. We have time. How about making the direction to the back seat?"

"Why Captain Beckett, making out in the back seat of your officially issued N.Y.P.D. vehicle?" Castle teased, pulling at the belt of her coat. "What would 1PP say about that?"

Kate reached for the buttons on his jacket. "Castle, right now I don't give a damn."


	14. Chapter 14

Finding Thanksgiving

Chapter 14

Unwilling to reveal her cards, Beckett addressed the man across the table from her in interrogation as Vikram. "Kidnapping, destruction of N.Y.P.D. property, we've got plenty to charge you with while we investigate your connections with drugs and murder."

"My client has availed himself of his right to remain silent," Attorney Bill Moss declared.

Kate glared at the lawyer. "Mr. Moss, I remember you. You shielded a man involved in instigating murder and framing our mayor for the crime. Your former client's actions were eventually traced back to the late unlamented William Bracken. The fact that you are here, speaks volumes." She shifted her gaze back to Bankin. "It's clear Vikram, you are involved with LokSat up to your eyeballs. He's behind all of this. Tell me who he is, how to take him down, and I can make some of the worst of this go away."

Bankin smiled confidently. "It's going to go away anyway, Kate. Any minute word will be coming down that you've lost all jurisdiction. I'll be gone and you'll have nothing, but then you've always had nothing but the rabbit holes you jump into and pull in after yourself."

From behind the mirror, Castle banged his fist against the glass. Kate rose from the table and exited the room, leaving L.T. to guard the prisoner. "What is it, Babe?" Kate asked.

"Kate," Castle explained frantically, "I don't think he's bluffing. Remember what happened when we had prisoners involved with the CIA before. Silver doesn't know he's been playing her. She could pull him out. Or LokSat could do it himself. We need to get him out of here."

"How Castle? The whole precinct, hell the whole state knows he's here. We can't just make him vanish."

"We can," Castle insisted. "Remember how I ended up at the library when 3XK was framing me for murder?"

Kate shook her head. "You never did tell me how you did that."

"You're right, I didn't. You weren't an accomplice if you didn't know anything. And we weren't married then. We'd only been dating a couple of months. I couldn't pull you into it. Gates would have skewered you if she found out you'd been involved. So I just had a friend arrange a little theater. Look, you tell Bankin and the guys here that you realize he's never going to talk and you're turning him over to the feds, only he never gets there. As captain, you can get away with it easy."

"But Castle," Kate protested, "your friends can't just drop him at the library. Where would we keep him?"

"Dino Scarpella owes me a favor from our blood oath, especially since he got me kicked out of the precinct. Maybe it's time to collect. I imagine he has all sorts of places to take people where they can be convinced to part with information."

Kate stared at her husband. "Are you suggesting that I let mobsters kidnap Bankin to keep him away from the CIA? Babe that's out there, even for you."

Castle pushed the hair back from her face and cupped her jaw in his palm. "Desperate times call for desperate measures. Or tell me you have a better idea."

Kate sighed in resignation. "I can't. I don't. Make your calls, Castle. And you'd better do it fast."

* * *

Bankin smirked as he was escorted to holding, anticipating a short stay. He was not surprised when Kate Beckett showed up not long afterward to release him to two men in suits. He was gobsmacked when the two men bound his wrists, gagged him, and shoved him in the back of a car with darkened windows.

Bankin was tied to a chair much as Hayley had been, and left to sit for hours until Kate Beckett and Richard Castle walked into the room. "Where am I?" Bankin demanded angrily.

"Where no one is going to come to your rescue," Kate answered. "The games are over now. We know you're CIA. We know that you were working for the woman who introduced herself as Rita, but that you were playing her too. You're part of the drug operation that Bracken used to run with LokSat and another operation that seems to be LokSat's alone. You're as dirty as they come Vikram, or should I say Bankin, and you've been using the CIA to cover your tracks. But they can't reach you here. The only way you're getting out of this is to give us LokSat."

Sweat soaked Bankin's shirt. "You can't do this. You're a cop."

"I'm not one here," Kate returned.

"Actually, the folks who own this place don't like cops very much.," Castle continued. "Kate is permitted here because she's my wife, which makes her family, so to speak. And they're kind of used to hearing people scream around here too. In fact, some of them kind of like it. I think I might like hearing you scream too, after everything you put Kate - and me - through. So if you would like to avoid that kind of stress on your vocal chords and other body parts, tell us everything you know about LokSat."

Nervous laughter escaped Bankin's mouth. "LokSat? There is no LokSat anymore, he's a ghost story. There was one once, but he didn't pick his friends well."

"You mean Bracken?" Kate asked.

Bankin nodded. "Among others. There was a Mexican drug cartel that wasn't a good choice either. When they found out he was doing business with the Columbians, they took him out. So someone had to pick up the pieces, keep the legend alive and tie up loose ends."

"Loose ends like Bracken?" Castle queried.

"And some of the private contractors who were killed in the operation Silver, the woman you know as Rita, set up to draw Kate in. It was very convenient to place them there for Kate to take out." Bankin looked at Kate. "You weren't as much of a badass as you thought. They thought they were there to scare you off. They had orders just to wound you. You, of course, had no such restrictions."

"Well I may do more than wound you if you don't tell me just who picked up those pieces," Kate retorted. "Who is running LokSat's operation now?"

Bankin smirked. "For someone who is supposed to be such a smart cop, you are more than a little slow. Of course I have colleagues and operatives, some of whom are in it for the money and others who think they're working hard for the good of their country, but who's left in the picture?"

Castle's mouth fell open as understanding washed over him. "You're LokSat!"

"LokSat is an organization," Bankin corrected, "a very efficient one, but I sit at the head of the table. And I can tell you that the other members will not be at all pleased that I am missing."

"I wouldn't be too sure," Castle suggested. "You and your friends didn't exactly mourn the passing of your predecessor, or his pal Bracken. I would imagine if you vanished mysteriously they would continue to run the very efficient operation without you. The owners of this establishment are extraordinarily efficient themselves - at making people disappear. You could be one of the Easter eggs they'd hide for good, although I might make them happy by giving them a chance to coax some good loud screams and perhaps some desperate pleas for mercy out of you first."

Moisture ran down Bankin's forehead, stinging his eyes. "What do you want?"

Kate glared at him with eyes a jackhammer couldn't have dented. "I want everything. Give me the names of the others who make up LokSat, your drug connections, installations, how you launder your money. You give me that, and you might just see another sunrise without needing a shot of morphine to kill the pain enough so you can open your eyes."

"A lot of that is on files on hard drives I have hidden, but I'll tell you where to find them," Bankin agreed, shuddering at the menace in the set of Castle's face.

"If anything you tell us, even one word, is a lie," Kate warned. "You will never tell anyone anything again."


	15. Chapter 15

Finding Thanksgiving

Chapter 15

Kate and Castle looked on anxiously as Hayley scanned the contents of Bankin's hard drives.

"A lot of this is going to need decrypting," Hayley reported. "That's going to take some time, if I can do it at all. It's sophisticated code. It looks like trade craft. But one of these is pretty straightforward, a substitution cipher. It's all the transactions of the drug operations."

"We could turn that over to the DEA as a gift from a good Samaritan," Kate proposed.

"The rest of it we can turn over to our CIA contact when we turn over Bankin," Castle added. "He'll have access to the resources to decrypt it."

"What to you think will happen to Bankin, Rick?" Hayley wondered.

"With this contact, we're better off no knowing," Castle answered grimly.

* * *

Castle jabbed a hypodermic he'd been sent by messenger, into Bankin's arm. The captive was rendered semi-conscious. He could be led, but his brain could make no sense of what he saw or heard. Kate and Castle transported Bankin to the meet, trailed by two large sedans carrying Scarpella's soldiers. Castle waved the cars off a couple of blocks before he, Kate, and their prisoner reached their destination. At a building near the United Nations, Castle entered access codes he'd received with the syringe into a panel by the back door, then into the controls of an elevator, and finally into the digital lock on an apartment.

Jackson Hunt stood in a room opulently furnished in antiques. Castle pushed an unresistant Bankin down on a tufted velvet sofa. Kate handed several hard drives to Hunt.

"What is this place?" Castle asked.

"Upscale safe house," Jackson replied. "Very convenient for diplomats and foreign assets considering defecting. Of course all the codes will be changed the moment you leave. But I thought you should see it as part of your history, son. After I finished the mission I had at the U.N., this is where I brought your mother. I told her it belonged to a rich uncle. Other than a considerable upgrade in electronics, it hasn't changed much. This is where you were conceived."

Castle looked around. The furniture held the rich patina of age. The hardwood floors were covered in oriental rugs. A grand piano stood in one corner. The room had the feel of a parlor from a Victorian play. Through an open door, he could see a massive four poster bed. "Mother must have loved this."

"She did," Jackson agreed. "She was very caught up in the fantasy of it all. She even pulled me with her a bit. That's probably why we weren't as careful as we might have been." The furrows in Jackson's face deepened as he smiled in remembrance. He looked back at Castle. "But it seems to have worked out. As I told you in Paris, I have always been proud of you, son. But you and your beautiful wife need to leave now. There will be operatives coming to claim your package." Hunt extended a hand and Castle shook it before he and Kate made their way out.

* * *

"It's good to see you back Ma'am," the doorman greeted Kate as she and Castle strode hand in hand through the front door of the building that housed the loft.

"It's nice to be back," Kate responded as she and Castle headed for the elevator.

The moment the doors closed, Castle pulled her to him. "If Eduardo knows we're together again, I guess it's official. We should celebrate."

"In the elevator?" Kate smiled.

"To start," Castle murmured as his mouth descended on hers.

The need Castle had trapped behind a wall of anger, unsated by the tentative beginnings on their return from Bankin's lair, emerged, ravenously seeking what only Kate could provide. The trail of clothing hastily ripped away, led from the front door through the office to the bedroom. It ended with Rick and Kate falling on the bed free of artificial barriers to their passion. Comforter and sheets were pushed and kicked aside as they struggled to meld, with every square inch of skin craving an answering touch. Their mouths locked, their bodies heating as the flames of arousal built to a fiery blaze.

Rick jerked his lips from Kate's to taste the musky saltiness of her skin. It all called to him, from the firmness of her jawline, the softness of of her neck, finally to the pink tips straining for his attention. Kate arched as he took one in, pushing her most desperate need against the obvious physical expression of his. Beyond conscious control, she moved urgently. Her hands clutched at his back, working their way downward to the firm mounds of muscle above his thighs, pulling him still closer.

He gasped, her name wrenching itself huskily from his throat. She was open, ready, more than ready, her legs tight around his waist. He filled an emptiness in her body and her soul, a wound torn open the night she'd begged forgiveness and left him. Every muscle in her body, every thought in her mind wrapped around him. The pressure built within her. She was on a slope, but instead of cold wind as she fought her way to the top, there was the burn of desire, driving her upward. Even as she strove, the end took her unawares, a sudden explosion sending massive aftershocks through muscle and bone. She could feel Rick's response within her as they held each other through the storm.

* * *

It was dark when Rick felt Kate stirring gently against him, the city lights the only illumination, penetrating the windows and drawing patterns on the ceiling. He drew her against him under the sheet they'd pulled over them as their bodies slowly cooled. "What are you thinking?"

She snuggled beneath his arm. "Not thinking, feeling. Warm, happy, safe - but hungry."

Castle grinned as he stroked her arm. "Understandable. I think we may have burned a few thousand calories. Midnight snack?"

"Sounds like a wonderful idea!" Castle pulled on his shorts while Kate wrapped herself in what was left of his shirt, and they made their way to the kitchen. Castle began pulling containers out of the freezer. "What's all that?" Kate queried.

Castle turned to her, threading a hand through the post-loving tangle of her hair. "Leftovers from Thanksgiving. I never gave up on us, Kate. I put them away hoping I'd have a chance to share them with you."

Moisture clouding her eyes, Kate set the table and made a salad while Castle heated up slices of turkey, stuffing, cranberry relish, and gravy. Castle filled sparkling crystal wineglasses with Kate's favorite red, which he'd kept hopefully stowed in his kitchen rack.

They slid into their chairs at their impromptu feast and Castle folded his hands and closed his eyes. "What are you doing Babe?" Kate asked.

Castle's lashes lifted and he reached out to take her hand in his. "I'm giving thanks."

Finis

A/N I think most of us know from the **spoilers** TPW and AH have put out that when _Castle_ comes back after hiatus Rick and Kate will be separated in public but very together in private. Who better to know the truth of the matter than the denizens of the Janitor's Closet and their inanimate compatriots? So join me for _Castles in the Closet_ with Mop, Broom, their friends, and oh yes, someone's going to have to talk to Lucy.


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